Friday, December 10, 2021

And another day of SCOTUS not ending the TX abortion ban, a PowerPoint plan for Jan 6, Ye’s publicist threatening GA election worker, GA’s Perdue keeps on with the Big Lie, a major software flaw, erectile dysfunction, and what being a Republican means to Republicans comes to a close:

“Hate never made any nation great.” — Anonymous

“Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch.” — Rodrigo Duterte, a prominent speaker at the Summit On Democracy

“Dems are tackling the threat to democracy by becoming sufficiently unpopular that the GOP can win fair and square.” — Matthew Yglesias

Deaths

US: 817,326 (+2057)

World: 5,311,680 (+9079)

Cases

US: 50,705,257 (+169,466)

World: 269,423,427 (+684,118)

Court won’t stop Texas abortion ban, but OKs clinics’ suit. The Supreme Court has ruled that Texas abortion providers can sue over the state’s ban on most abortions, but the justices are allowing the law to remain in effect.

"It's not a good decision if you care about Roe v. Wade," Brian Owsley, a professor at UNT Dallas College of Law, said in an analysis of today's Supreme Court decision. “This is decision basically, in many ways, refuses to uphold the court's precedent in Roe v. Wade."

"My disagreement with the Court runs far deeper than a quibble over how many defendants these petitioners may sue. The dispute is over whether States may nullify federal constitutional rights by employing schemes like the one at hand. The Court indicates that they can, so long as they write their laws to more thoroughly disclaim all enforcement by state officials, including licensing officials." — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Chief Justice John Roberts warns Supreme Court over Texas abortion law: Roberts joined the high court's three liberal justices in discussing the constitutionality of the Texas abortion law. The chief justice of the United States, John Roberts, warned Friday that the Supreme Court risks losing its own authority if it allows states to circumvent the courts as Texas did with its near-total abortion ban. In a strongly worded opinion joined by the high court’s three liberal justices, Roberts wrote that the "clear purpose and actual effect" of the Texas law was "to nullify this Court’s rulings." That, he said, undermines the Constitution and the fundamental role of the Supreme Court and the court system as a whole…“If the legislatures of the several states may, at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the Constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery,” he said, quoting the 1809 U.S. v. Peters case, which found that state legislatures can't overrule federal courts. “The nature of the federal right infringed does not matter; it is the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system that is at stake.”

Trump White House chief Mark Meadows turned over to Jan. 6 committee an email that referred to a PowerPoint calling for Trump to declare a NatIonal Security emergency and have VP Pence delay Biden’s certification. — The “Recommendations” list is something else. Particularly the third and fourth bullet points. 

Kanye West publicist pressed Georgia election worker to confess to bogus fraud charges. Weeks after the 2020 election, a Chicago publicist for hip-hop artist Kanye West traveled to the suburban home of Ruby Freeman, a frightened Georgia election worker who was facing death threats after being falsely accused by former President Donald Trump of manipulating votes. The publicist knocked on the door and offered to help. The visitor, Trevian Kutti, gave her name but didn’t say she worked for West, a longtime billionaire friend of Trump. She said she was sent by a “high-profile individual,” whom she didn’t identify, to give Freeman an urgent message: confess to Trump’s voter-fraud allegations, or people would come to her home in 48 hours, and she’d go to jail. Freeman refused. — Um…WTF? See the video.

Georgia’s Perdue sues over 2020 election, pushes fraud claim. Days after announcing his candidacy for governor, Republican David Perdue further embraced debunked claims of electoral fraud in Georgia’s 2020 presidential race by joining a lawsuit seeking to prove he and former President Donald Trump were cheated out of election victories.

Voters who think Trump won are the most enthusiastic to vote in 2022. Either way, there are a lot of Republicans who don't think Biden won fairly in 2020. Importantly, a lot of Republicans are going to prioritize their feelings about 2020 in how they vote in 2022. That is, it's not likely going to be an afterthought when casting a ballot. A majority (61%) of potential Republican primary voters say believing Trump won the 2020 election is important to what being a Republican means to them. Only 39% disagreed. — Very rarely does one actually break free from the cult mentality.

U.S. prices jumped 6.8% in November—steepest rise since 1982. Consumer prices jumped last month at their fastest rate since 1982 as surging inflation in items ranging from food to housing showed no signs of abating.

60 percent of Americans say too many use religious reason to avoid vaccines. The poll found 59 percent of Americans think religious reasons are used too often to avoid getting the vaccine, while 60 percent believe there is no valid religious reason not to get it. And while most coronavirus vaccine mandates in the U.S. come with exemptions, 45 percent of respondents said they think there should be no religious exemptions for the vaccine. -- There should absolutely be no religious exemptions. Religious exemptions are bullshit. Stop using religion as an excuse for bad behavior.

Companies of all sizes are rethinking their plans to send workers back to the office as the new omicron variant adds another layer of uncertainty.

As storms start, US states struggle to hire snowplow drivers. States from Washington to Pennsylvania, including Montana and Wyoming in the Rocky Mountains, are having trouble finding enough people willing to take the comparatively low-paying jobs that require a Commercial Driver's License and often entail working at odd hours in dangerous conditions. — This should not be surprising. 

Students who reported troubling Snapchat messages thwarted a potential mass shooting at a Florida campus, officials say. Police in Florida arrested a student attending Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University for allegedly "plotting to shoot up the campus" on Thursday, which was the final day before winter break, officials said. 

UM faculty, hit with pay cuts, fuming over $80 million deal for star football coach Cristobal. Many UM professors and other faculty — forced to teach in person and accept compensation cuts during the COVID-19 pandemic — are fuming and say staff morale has plunged. Some members of the UM Faculty Senate view Mario Cristobal’s $80 million contract as only the latest sign of the administration’s disrespect for the academic staff at the private university. As part of deep pandemic cutbacks, the university had slashed more than $100 million in its matching contributions to faculty members’ retirement plans in the 2020-2021 academic year. Now, some faculty believe those cuts have helped bankroll lavish spending on athletics and construction projects and could hurt the school academically.

Feds bust ‘modern-day slavery’ ring amid new immigration enforcement effort. At least 100 immigrant workers were freed from conditions in which at least two died, another was repeatedly raped, and others were kidnapped and threatened with death.

‘The internet’s on fire’ as techs race to fix software flaw. A critical vulnerability in a widely used software tool — one quickly exploited in the online game Minecraft — is rapidly emerging as a major threat to organizations around the world. The flaw may be the worst computer vulnerability discovered in years. It was uncovered in an open-source logging tool that is ubiquitous in cloud servers and enterprise software used across industry and government. Unless it is fixed, it grants criminals, spies and programming novices alike easy access to internal networks where they can loot valuable data, plant malware, erase crucial information and much more.

Starbucks unionization vote is 'tip of the iceberg,' organizers say. Americans’ support for unions is now at around 68 percent, a level not seen since 1965. Across the country, a new momentum appears to be gathering for increased worker power and rights. Employers are clamoring for workers as many hang back for health or child care issues, or because their time apart has given them a chance to reflect on what they want out of life. Historic levels of job openings have stiffened workers’ spines as they feel more confident than they have in years, quitting jobs at historic levels, in what is being termed “The Great Resignation,” and demanding higher wages and benefits.

A recent study has found that healthy men between the ages of 20 and 65 who vaped nicotine daily were more than twice as likely to report experiencing erectile dysfunction than men who did not vape. This association held true even for men without any other health concerns or habits connected to sexual dysfunction, including smoking, a known contributor to erectile dysfunction.

Bitcoin surge a boon for white nationalists: study. The increase in Bitcoin’s value over the last few years has made several prominent white nationalists rich, according to a Southern Poverty Law Center study. The legal nonprofit identified over 600 far-right extremists with cryptocurrency holdings.  Several prominent white supremacists, like Andrew Auernheimer and Andrew Anglin of the Daily Stormer and racial pseudoscientist Stefan Molyneux, were early adopters of Bitcoin, providing them with significant windfalls.

The US government is making it official — Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and William Shatner have earned the title of "astronaut" after their flights to the edge of space.

RIP Michael Nesmith. He was 78.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.